Hirschfeld deliberately distinguished solitude, or loneliness, from a state that leads to depression or despair. For him, the contemplation of one’s self leads to the “dialogue with one self and with nature”, as is the case, e.g., in his Chant of the Night, which is based on poems by Walt Whitman. Hirschfeld chose Whitman’s Leaves of Grass with its portrayal of human solitude in the plains as a starting point in order to develop the music from a simple melodic cell, “which, like human consciousness, holds an intense dialogue with nature and which is transformed, and even transcended, only eventually to return to its origin.” (Hirschfeld) In Makyo, solitary peace fuels the interplay among various inner images, which are represented as manifold variations (ranging from a prelude pulsing in slow-motion and a densely packed scherzo to a simple song). Hirschfeld packs solitude in its purest form into the part for bass clarinet in the piece Solo op. 33: “There is not a single suggestion, no designation of movements, no dialoguing polyphony: there is only sound and silence…”

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“The building blocks upon which your tradition rests“: Cristóbal Halffter brings together Spanish, Sephardic and Arabic texts in his Siete cantos de España.

The master of the prepared piano tackles small musical forms with his accustomed originality in his Sonatas and Interludes.